Traditional uses of public space: Meeting place, market place and traffic space
 1880 |  1960 | 1880. Copenhagen's main thoroughfare at Christmas time, depicted in a painting by Erik Henningsen reflecting the social and economic reality of the time. Of necessity, the street was a workplace, a place to sell or transport goods. The more privileged used the street for shopping and promenading, to see and be seen. 1960. The same street invaded by car traffic. Pedestrians are confined to two narrow pavements with almost no room for anything but to keep moving. |
| 1968. Five years after pedestrianisation. Walking, shopping and window-shopping dominate. The social function of seeing and being seen continues to be an integral part of street life. 2000. The same street on a summer day. Six times more area is available to pedestrians. People are still in transit, but now they have other options. Many are standing, sitting or sipping refreshments at numerous outdoor cafes. | 1968 | 2000 |
Although the pattern of usage has varied in the course of history, despite differences, subtle and otherwise, public space has always served as meeting place, marketplace and traffic space. The city has always been a place for people to meet and greet each other, a place to exchange information about the city and society, a place where important events were staged: coronations, processions, feasts and festivals, town meetings and executions, to mention just a few.
The city was also a marketplace, where goods and services were offered and exchanged. Finally, the city was a thoroughfare providing access to and connecting the various uses of the city. People walked about and goods were hauled from one place to another.
In the past, when most movement was conducted on foot, there was often a good balance between the three uses of the city. Pedestrians were able to walk where they needed to go, meeting, trading, talking and taking in the sights all in the same trip through town. The uses of the city were conducted simultaneously in the same public space. However, in the 20th century, particularly in the industrialised nations, conditions for the three main uses of public space changed. New patterns of traffic, trade and communication were so radical that they interrupted centuries of tradition as to how people used the city.
Electric trains and bicycles, introduced at the end of the 19th century, gave people a wider range and allowed the city to expand significantly in area. Once cars were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, transportation patterns changed dramatically. Particularly after the Second World War, car traffic in the city developed by leaps and bounds and the use of public space changed accordingly. Heavy car traffic does not coexist peacefully alongside the uses of the city as meeting place and marketplace. Uses that had been in balance for centuries were now in open conflict.
| Traditionally there was always a good balance between the city's functions as meeting place, market place and traffic space. This pattern continues in a number of well-preserved old cities, such as Venice, Italy, shown here. |  |
 |  | Trade and traffic have completely changed character in the course of the 20th century. Cars have taken over the streets (Madrid, Spain, far left), and shopping has moved indoors (underground shopping concourse, Nagoya, Japan). |
The city as marketplace also underwent dramatic changes in the 20th century. Trade from open booths was gradually moved to small shops along streets and squares, then to increasingly larger shops and supermarkets, and finally to giant shopping malls, usually far from the heart of the city. In those cases where shopping centres were established within the city, they closed in on themselves and were no longer part of the public arena. Trading takes place in indoor enclaves through a labyrinth of private walkways complete with small squares, bubbling fountains, muzak and air conditioning. In the process, the marketplace with its attendant "public life" has become strictly controlled, with all activities and human interaction regulated by security guards. Quite literally, the market was taken from the public arena and moved to the private sphere. The 20th century also decisively changed the conditions for the city's use as meeting place and information exchange.
The rapid and extensive development of print and electronic news media has made it possible to provide people with an endless stream of information about the community and the wider world. No town crier needed here.
At the same time, a seemingly endless stream of opportunities for indirect communication from person to person emerged: first the telegraph, then the telephone, the cell phone, e-mail, the Internet. Individual mobility provided by cars and other forms of transportation and the development of cheap forms of long-distance travel provided new opportunities for people to meet other people.
The traditional role of the city as an important meeting place for its citizens had changed completely.
Here at the dawning of the new millennium, these massive changes in society within only a century make the vitality of public life in central Copenhagen of special interest. The many people on the streets and in the squares have chosen to be there, to walk and spend time in public spaces. Despite the many developments and changes in patterns of use, as a marketplace and meeting place the city continues to offer a significant alternative, a valuable supplement to the multitude of other options.
 |  Modern rendezvous, Oslo, Norway |  Banks of public telephones, San José, Costa Rica |
